


Earthbreaker, Noble & Prized

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fall of SHIELD, Fluff, M/M, PTSD, Past Brainwashing, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Captain America 3, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Iron Man 3, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Rebuilding, Stark Tower, deprogramming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Traded a flying aircraft carrier for an office. I make great life choices.”</p><p>In the wake of the fall of SHIELD, Phil Coulson is tasked with remaking the agency as it should have been.  Since an agency composed of approximately eight people is rather ineffective, however, he starts by paying visits to some old friends--and then some less old friends--and makes attempts at recruitment pitches.  If you ask Tony Stark's opinion, Phil makes for a rather poor salesman, but since it's Phil come-back-from-the-dead Coulson who's asking, they go anyway.</p><p>Or: the one in which Phil Coulson gets the band back together, then has to go poach from a couple of other people's bands.</p><p> </p><p>Post-<i>Agents of SHIELD</i> series 1 finale, with added spoilers for <i>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</i>, and <i>The Avengers</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Been Putting out Fires All My Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sirona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/gifts), [ethelindi (eventide)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eventide/gifts), [bibliothekara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliothekara/gifts).



> Spoilers for: the fandoms listed in the summary (AOS Season 1, _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ , _The Avengers_ ); there are no spoilers for the other films listed in the tags (e.g. _Thor: The Dark World_ ), they're just included for timeline purposes. See endnotes (at the epilogue) for title credits and notes on canon influences.
> 
> If this were being rated by the MPAA, it'd hit an R for miscellaneous cursing, but it's not, and the content is otherwise relatively tame. That said, drop me a line if you feel the rating should go up a notch.
> 
> Thanks to sirona, ethelindi, and bibliothekara for the plot bunnies (even though this particular one was probably not what they were expecting), and to sirona and ethelindi for the commentary, beta, and brainstorming.

“I’m hallucinating,” are the first words out of Tony Stark’s mouth when Phil Coulson walks into his lab at Stark Tower. “JARVIS, am I hallucinating?”

“I do not believe so, sir,” the crisp, British voice of the AI responds, and Phil shrugs, calm and collected as ever in one of his ubiquitous Dolce suits.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he says, deadpan, and Tony quirks a dark eyebrow at him.

“How long have you been waiting to use that line?”

“That would be telling.”

Wiping his hands off on a rag before tossing it on the workbench, the engineer leans back against the edge of the table. “That would be the point of asking,” he retorts, and it’s just like Phil never died.

“If I remember correctly, you got plenty of mileage out of almost dying.  I _actually_ died; there has to be a perk somewhere.”

Though nothing else in Tony’s expression changes, the crinkling at the corners of his eyes is a smile in itself. “Touché,” he concedes. “So what brings you here? Trying to poach Hill back to the old team?” 

“No.  Well, yes, but not entirely.”  Perching on one of the empty stools, he leans forward and braces his elbows on the tabletop.  “I assume you’re aware of SHIELD’s…”  He trails off, gesturing vaguely as he searches for a suitable noun, and for once Tony saves him the effort of trying, nodding and waving a hand.

“Yes.  I’ve been working with Cap and Falcon to track the Winter Soldier,” he says, and Phil blinks in surprise.  “Plus, I don’t, you know, live under a rock.”

Phil cracks a wry smile.  “Then you may not be overly surprised by what I’m about to say.  It’s not publicly known, but given that this is you, I assume you know Fury is also not dead.”

Tony tips his head at him in acknowledgement. “Yes.  This is beginning to be a pattern.”

“Unfortunately,” Phil agrees. “He’s handed the agency to me—or what remains of it, anyway.  Which is why I’m here to ask you to join SHIELD.”

Tony shoots him a long, level look that’s carefully expressionless, then says, “Well, you drew the short straw, didn’t you?” It’s apparently a rhetorical question for which he doesn’t expect an answer, because he continues almost immediately, “Half the Avengers aren’t even here, and the Initiative was never—”

Holding up a hand, Phil stops him before he can get any real momentum going.  “I’m not asking for the team,” he clarifies.  “Especially given SHIELD’s standing at the moment, having the Initiative remain independent and appointing a liaison would be wiser. I’m asking for _you_. Executive Assistant Director. Your choice of AD for your division.”  He pauses, adds, “Within reason.”

This time both of Tony’s eyebrows creep a little farther up his forehead.  “All they said was you were dead, not that you were crazy,” he says at last, and Phil shakes his head, corners of his mouth twisting up.

“You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but the list of people I trust right now is very, very short.”

“Evidently, since I seem to be on it.”

Inclining his head, Phil doesn’t disagree, though he doesn’t agree, either.  “Your father helped Fury build the original SHIELD.  I know you were given a great deal of that information a few years ago, and as much as I hate to admit it, association with the Stark name and Iron Man will help our credibility, seeing as we currently have none.”

“Okay, for the record, if anyone ever told you that you should try being a salesman, they were totally lying to your face: no one would ever buy anything from you,” Tony informs him, shifting his weight and crossing his arms over his chest, but he sounds like he’s trying not to laugh, and Phil tries rather unsuccessfully to do the same.  For a moment, Tony remains silent, the blue glow of the arc reactor brightened slightly by the brace of his arms and the tension in the fabric.  Then, “I will not build weapons for SHIELD, or whatever you end up calling it.”

“I didn’t think you would, though occasional consults would probably be appreciated.  But we need a structural overhaul, and as far as tech goes, I think you’re the best suited to it.  Serving as the head of our Science, Technology, and Cybercrime Division would allow you to do that, and while it means working with Science and Tech at the Academy, it also keeps you in R&D doing work you actually enjoy.”

Slowly, Tony nods, tapping his forefinger against his arm as he thinks.  “Who else is on the table?”

“For this position?  No one,” Phil admits.  “I’ll be asking Maria to return as Deputy, if she’s willing, and—have you met Melinda May?”

“A couple of times, yes.”

“I’ve asked her to at least temporarily head up Operations, and Skye, one of my team members, will be working with a few others on Communications.  Maria and Melinda, along with Natasha and Clint, will be siphoning through the few agents we actually have left, as well as the students at the Academy, to see who’s to be trusted and who isn’t.”

“I’d like to think about it.”

“Certainly,” Phil responds.  He stays where he is, gives it about thirty seconds, then looks at his watch and says, “Time’s up.”

Tony shoots him a look rife with exasperation. “Coulson—”

“Stark, I don’t have the luxury of time. None of us do.”

For a few unnerving moments, Tony holds his gaze, blue eyes searching, and Phil lets him, wondering what he’s looking for. He has no idea if he finds it or not, but when Tony answers, he says only, “I am _not_ calling you boss,” and Phil knows he’s sold.

“We’ve already done the impending apocalypse bit,” he says drily.  “No need to start another.”

\----------

For the first month after Nick Fury handed him the foundations of an agency, Phil had spent most of his time trying to figure out what the hell happened next.  Because not even Hollywood could make starting an intelligence agency of this scope look easy, and the reality felt a great deal like being dumped in front of Mount Everest and told you had five minutes to make the climb to the peak.  Personally, he thought (still thinks) the entire endeavour would inevitably drive him mad, and somewhere in the back of his mind he began to think Fury suddenly made a great deal more sense.

\----------

“I know I said Stark would give you a job, but this is pretty much the last place I expected to see you,” Maria Hill says, a mere fifteen minutes after he’d finished shaking Tony’s hand to seal the agreement.  In slacks, heels, and a suit jacket, she looks decidedly innocuous to anyone who didn’t know better.

“At least he gave you a nice office.”

“Traded a flying aircraft carrier for an office. I make great life choices,” she quips, and he smiles.

“I’m about to ask you to make a worse one.”

She, too, raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow as she takes the armchair kitty-corner to the end table beside Coulson’s, rather than sitting behind her desk.  “Unless you’re asking me to run for Congress, I’m not sure that’s possible.”

Laughing in spite of himself, he shakes his head. “Well, I’m asking you to return to SHIELD as Deputy, so I’ll leave that determination up to you.”

“I know Fury had no intention of returning this soon.  He handed it to you, then?”

Whatever he’d been expecting—admonishment, disbelief, anger—her complete lack of surprise hadn’t even made the list. “He did,” he answers. “You stood next to him for eight years, and while I don’t know why he asked me and not you, I can’t think of a better person to help rebuild us into what we were supposed to be.”

Maria’s smile is openly amused, brown eyes warm. “You do know he called you his one good eye, don’t you?  Did you think that was just him being sentimental?”  Phil snorts, and she laughs.  “Exactly.  Besides, it means you have to deal with the World Security Council, and I do not in any way envy you that.”

“Technically, if you’re my deputy, I can delegate that.”

Sighing theatrically, she looks heavenward. “I haven’t even signed a contract and already the threats have begun.”

Relieved in a manner he had not been anticipating, he leans back in the chair.  He and Maria had never been adversaries, nor had he ever had an issue taking orders from her, but it would have been all too easy for her to be outright insulted by Fury’s decision, and he can’t afford to lose the few allies of whom he’s certain.  “You’ve been SHIELD for how long?  Surely you can’t be surprised by that.”

The grin she flashes him is full of teeth and reminds him of Natasha Romanov and Pepper Potts all at once (the thought is admittedly terrifying).  “I said nothing about surprise,” she points out.  Then, sobering, she asks, “Who else have you got?”

“Administratively, not a lot.” He pauses, bites the bullet. “Tony’s accepted the offer of Executive AD.”

This, too, she receives with a remarkable degree of aplomb, saying only, “Smart choice.  He’s a pain in the ass, but we could use his brains. Science, Tech, and Cybercrime, I assume?”

“Precisely.”  This, he thinks, is why he needs her with him.  “I’m thinking of having Fitz and Simmons working with him on that.  Koenig’s running the base, since we don’t exactly have another option—I may put him in charge of Logistics and HR later on—and seeing about getting the Helicarrier restored.” Seeing her expression shift, he clarifies, “The original, not Pierce’s Nazi assassin devices.” She nods, and he continues, offering her the same list he’d just given Tony.

“Melinda will hate it,” she observes, and his answering expression is wry.

“I know, but she’ll be good at it, and with luck it won’t be permanent.”  Blowing out a breath, he adds, “I’d like the two of you, plus Barton and Romanov, to help me in assessing the remaining agents, along with every student we had at the Academy.”

For the first time, she looks uncertain, reaching up to brush a strand of pitch-dark hair back behind her ear. “I missed—”

“We all did,” he says, cutting her off. “But now we know, and we won’t make the same mistake twice.”

Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, at last she nods.  “How _is_ Ward?”

It’s Phil’s turn to pause.  “I don’t know,” he tells her.  “Between Melinda and me, we’ve been able to get some actionable intel, and thus far it’s checked out.  Beyond that?”  He shrugs.  “I don’t think everything that led to this was entirely his fault, but what happens next depends on him.”

“Fair enough.”  Dropping her chin into her hand, she tips her head to the side and looks at him.  “So, when do we start?”

“We just did.”

\----------

As Phil had promised, Grant Ward hadn’t been placed in the Fridge—in truth, that had more to do with it being compromised than anything else, but all the same.  Instead, he’s in holding at the Playground, routinely questioned by Phil and Melinda and left in silence to _think_ when he’s not. Specialist he may be, but Phil knows better than most that even when you’re accustomed to working alone, this is more punishment than any torture that could be devised; given that he’d married one of the best specialists SHIELD had ever had, Phil _should_ know.

What he doesn’t say is that he hasn’t written Ward off as a lost cause.  Antoine Triplett is officially the team’s new specialist, and Phil is admittedly impressed with him.  But he’s also read Ward’s file, knows enough about the circumstances of his recruitment for the resolute allegiance to Garrett to make a painful amount of sense, since it reads like the textbook for Conditioning and Terrorist Recruitment 101. Phil had been there when the Black Widow became a SHIELD asset instead of a SHIELD enemy, when Natasha Romanov became a SHIELD agent; he’d been the one to turn Clint Barton from mercenary to agent, helped burnish the edges from the chip on his shoulder and his brash, rebel attitude.

Because of that, and perhaps _only_ because of that, he’s willing to wait before passing any further judgement, but forgiveness is not remotely an option, not now.  The betrayal is too fresh, their agency still ashes at their feet, and the pattern of distrust has been too ingrained for change. The team needs distance, needs time, and it’s a testament to Melinda’s self-control that she hasn’t tried to murder him every time they question him.  That they’re shorthanded enough for rebuilding to take priority makes for a convenient excuse to otherwise avoid him entirely.

\----------

He meets with Natasha and Clint somewhere around evening.  They’ve both taken Stark up on his offer of living quarters, somewhat to Phil’s surprise, so they agree on Natasha’s floor.  Since Natasha hates cooking and is correspondingly terrible at anything more complicated than survival minimums, Clint’s taken over the kitchen for the evening and is humming along to the soundtrack of _Evita_.  Phil has a weakness for Broadway the way he has a weakness for classic literature and _Sandman_ , and the Broadway addiction turned out to be catching.

When he walks in the door, Natasha is nowhere to be seen (which is hardly surprising), the room smells like heaven, and Clint steps away from the counter as a smile spreads across his face. “Hi,” he says, and the corners of Phil’s eyes crinkle in affectionate amusement.

“Hi,” he replies, reaching up to pull him in for a kiss.

“Get a room,” a voice interrupts, and Clint Barton flips off the world’s deadliest assassin like he’s at a frat house and holds the kiss a little longer, probably at least thirty percent just because she’d commented.  (Granted, with the Winter Soldier having resurfaced, it’s entirely possible the title’s up for debate, but the Soldier’s back off the grid and Natasha’s the only one present, so at the moment the point is moot.)

Not long after he’d woken up, Phil had all but blackmailed Fury into telling Clint the truth; for once in his life, Fury hadn’t fought overly hard against that.  By necessity—time, maintaining cover, Clint being sent off with a team to investigate rumours surrounding their base in Africa—they had seen each other only twice since then and survived on emails and phone calls and text messages, but Clint’s stopped looking quite so guilty all the time, and Phil’s stopped _feeling_ quite so guilty all the time.  He isn’t surprised they survived this, not really, but he _is_ grateful.

“Nat,” he says by way of greeting, as Clint heads back to the stove.  “Kitchen still organised the same way?”

As their primary handler for most of their SHIELD careers, they’ve all spent entirely too much time spent holed up in safehouses on assignment and are far more familiar with one another’s domestic habits than anyone who isn’t married reasonably should be.  All the same, she nods, gesturing at the cupboards as she pulls silverware from another drawer.  “Welcome back.  I’m not sure whether to offer you congratulations or commiseration.”

Chuckling as he lays out three place settings, he responds, “Likely both.  And don’t think either of you are getting away from this untouched.” To Clint he says, “Is this a wine sort of dinner you’re making?”

“Yeah,” the archer calls over his shoulder without looking away from the frying pan.  “Can one of you hand me serving plates?”

Since Natasha’s closer to the dishes, Phil heads to the wine rack sitting on the marble countertop, impressed in spite of himself that Natasha _has_ a wine rack.  (He’s seen Tony’s wine cellar; that’s not the point.) None of the bottles are open, so he slides a French pinot noir out and turns to hold it up so Natasha can see it, one eyebrow raised to ensure he hasn’t chosen something she’s poisoned or broken out a bottle to which she’s strangely attached. She just nods in the direction of the drawer under the rack, where he finds the bottle opener and proceeds to pry the cork out; a memorably frustrating two weeks undercover as a sommelier means it takes him about two seconds.

By the time he’s poured three glasses, Natasha and Clint are just setting plates on the table, so he slides the glasses in front of them and drops into a chair.  Nudging Clint’s foot under the table, he says, “Thanks, for cooking. I think I’ve forgotten what real food tastes like.”

Clint rolls his eyes.  “I’ve _met_ most of the people on your new team, so yes, I’m pretty sure you have.”

Phil makes a face at him but doesn’t deny it, since it’s true.  He’s a fair hand in the kitchen himself, but he never exactly had abundant time to spend cooking instead of, well, saving the world from aliens and whatnot.  And then doing the accompanying paperwork. So.

“So, how many arms did you have to twist today?” Natasha asks as she dips a slice of bread into the olive oil-and-herbs mixture they’ve come to prefer over butter.

“Surprisingly, not that many,” Phil admits, spearing a tomato out of his salad.  “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Who’ve you got?” Clint inquires, slicing off a corner of his sirloin, so Phil gives them the rundown he’s been repeating all day.

Unsurprisingly, Natasha raises an eyebrow and says, “Do I need to check you for a head injury?  Stark, really?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but it actually kind of makes sense,” Clint says, slowly, his fork stopping halfway between his plate and his mouth.  “His father helped found SHIELD with Fury, right, brought in Peggy Carter and some of the Howling Commandos?”  Phil nods, and Clint _hmmms_ thoughtfully.  “He put together that network-ish thing, didn’t he?  With the Commandos and their kids and grandkids? Tony, that is, not his father.”

“There are rumours, but he’s never really admitted to it, and none of the family members have, either.  I’m _working_ with one of them and haven’t been able to get a straight answer.”

“Point.  Still, he’d have access to people that most of us… well, wouldn’t. Or, rather, he’d have access that makes sense and they’d trust.”

“I think I need to check _you_ for a head injury,” Natasha mutters, but her expression is pensive.

For that, Clint swipes a slice of potato off her plate.  “Hey, be nice to the guy who cooked you edible food.”

“Children, behave,” Phil says, mostly to the ceiling, and his husband laughs.

“So, what exactly are you planning to torture us with?”

Leaning back, Phil pauses long enough to take a sip of wine.  “I’d like both of you working with May to restructure Ops until we can figure out who can head up the division, since she’ll find a way to kill me slowly if I put her in charge of it permanently.”

“So much for leaving fieldwork behind,” Natasha says wryly, and Phil salutes her with his glass.

“I don’t suppose _you_ want—”

She doesn’t even let him finish, informing him, “I’ll go back to Russia instead,” and he grins.

“I thought as much.  Which is why you’ll also be joining May and Hill to assess… pretty much everyone left in the agency—agents, rookies, cadets, service staff, anyone who’s still on SHIELD’s payroll.  Which also translates to doing some teaching, since the number of senior agents qualified for that are far too few.”

With matching raised eyebrows, they both turn to look at him.  “Not that I don’t understand the reasoning behind that, but wow, what did we do to piss you off?” Clint says, but he’s grinning ruefully enough for Phil to reply, “Well, you could have turned out to have been Hydra, and then I’d have just had to shoot you and you’d be spared all this.”

“Is it too late for that now?” Natasha deadpans, and Clint throws a piece of bread in her general direction.

Looking over at her, Phil pauses. “And for you, there’s one more thing.  I’d like you to come down and talk with Grant Ward.”  Clint sort of freezes, and Phil presses their legs together under the table until he relaxes; Natasha just tips her head at him, so he shrugs. “May and I have been able to get intel from him, but he’d be no more willing to deal with SHIELD shrinks than you would, and at this point we don’t even have any.  I’m not implying you’re cut from the same cloth, but—”

“You should be,” Natasha points out logically, returning his shrug with one of her own.  “The only real difference is I wasn’t recruited into SHIELD by a Nazi psychopath.”

“Why, Tasha, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,” Clint says, hand placed theatrically over his heart, and she snorts.

“I’ll talk to him,” she tells Phil, otherwise ignoring her partner.  “Since rumour has it you’ve got him in six kinds of lockdown at that secret base instead of hanging by his ankles in the Fridge, I’m assuming you would rather I not beat it out of him, so I can’t guarantee I’ll get anywhere, but I’ll go.”

“Thank you.  I’ll have it set up within the week.”

She nods, and after that the rest of the meal is left to its own conversational devices.  Natasha talks about the Winter Soldier’s appearance and the Triskelion falling apart, Clint talks about the clusterfuck that’s been made of the Africa base, Phil talks about the last fight with Garrett and how he hopes Mike Peterson might be talked back to their side.  And amidst all of that is interspersed bitching about mundane things like the weather and living with Tony Stark and how the Kings lost… something.  Whatever game or match or whatsit they’d been playing, which Clint brings up mostly because none of them (him included) really care.

After they’ve eaten and put everything except the actual pots and pans in the dishwasher, though, Natasha kicks them out, saying Clint cooked and Phil has an entire fucking agency to run and she’s perfectly capable of doing a couple of dishes, thank you very much. Because they’re not entirely stupid, they comply; Clint kisses her on the cheek, she actually hugs Phil, and then they’re heading up a floor.

As the door shuts behind them, Clint teases, “And there I was, hoping sleeping with the new boss would mean I’d get to avoid the shitshow.”

Phil winces, unconsciously; Clint freezes before his expression shutters closed; and Phil wants to kick himself. “No,” he says, though he’s not really sure what he’s protesting, exactly.  “Don’t read too much into that.”  He holds out his hand, and after a beat Clint takes it. “SHIELD never really had frat regs, but Fury wasn’t exactly sleeping with his agents, either.” Shrugging, Phil runs his thumb across the brushed platinum band on Clint’s finger.  “With the actual agents we’ve got left, I’m pretty sure we’re an open secret if we’re even a secret at all, but I’m also pretty sure there’ll be some flak down the line.”  He tugs Clint closer, pulls him into his arms.  “I’m damn well not divorcing you over that, I just wish there was a way for you to not have to deal with it.”

“Yes, because the whole agency is so much easier,” Clint replies, but the tension is gone as easily as it had arisen, and he rests his cheek against Phil’s hair.

After a moment, he asks, tone all too nonchalant, “Did you want me to try talking to Ward?”

Phil doesn’t even look up, though he holds him a little tighter.  “Not particularly.  I know you ran a couple ops together, but I didn’t think you were close.”

“We’re not,” Clint confirms, a lilt in his voice that’s the verbal equivalent of a shrug, since his shoulders are rather occupied.  “Just… Loki—”

“Brainwashed you with magic,” Phil interrupts without moving, “which is not remotely the same thing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Phil responds immediately, “both about the magic and the talking.”  Pulling far enough away to see his husband, he leans back in to kiss him. “Stop thinking so much.”

Clint kisses him back, and Phil can _see_ the deliberate mental shift.  Then he says, “What exactly are you planning on doing to distract me?” and Phil grins.

“Oh, I can think of a lot of things. To start with, where the hell’s the shower in this place?”

\----------

Three months after Fury came and went on the Bus and left Coulson with his new, unexpected assignment, Tony sends Phil an email saying he’ll be gone for a week.  Thus far, he’s been assessing and reassessing his division’s procedures and the curriculum in use at Science & Technology, and Phil’s found himself suitably impressed.  He’s been friends with Pepper long enough to know that as much corralling as Tony seemed to need, if he committed to something he devoted himself to it wholeheartedly, but it’s the first time he’s been on the receiving end of that. In recruiting Tony, he should probably have also taken the man’s wealth into consideration, and it’s evidence of his own scattered attention that it had never occurred to him, because the first time Tony writes Phil—not the agency, but Phil—a seven-figure cheque and attaches a list of potential properties for a new base and suggestions for rebuilding the Triskelion and the Fridge if he so chooses, Phil just stares at it for a full five minutes before remembering how to say “thank you”.

Ergo, when Tony disappears for a week, he doesn’t protest.  The last thing he expects, however, is for Iron Man to return to the Tower with Captain America, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier in tow.

“How long have I been awake?” Steve Rogers asks when he sees Phil at Stark Tower, glancing back at Tony, who waves a hand dismissively.

“I thought I was going nuts, too,” he replies, “but apparently he wasn’t dead, either.”

“Well then.”  Shaking his head, Steve holds out his hand.  “Good to see you again, Director.”

Phil still hasn’t gotten used to that, but he takes the proffered hand.  “You as well, Captain.”  He glances past Steve, where Sam Wilson stands behind and to the left of James Barnes, somewhere between guard and protector; he’d seen the footage of the Winter Soldier—rather like the Chitauri invading Manhattan, it was hard to miss—but this version of Barnes, dressed in civvies with his hair cut short, reminds Phil of the sergeant who’d been Captain America’s best friend, not the man who’d tried to kill him. Rather than ask, however, he says only, “I’m Phil Coulson,” mostly for the benefit of Sam and Barnes. “Sergeant Wilson, we appreciate your efforts on this, and Sergeant Barnes, welcome back to the States. We’ll debrief in the morning; you all look like you could do with some rest.”

Then a text pops up on his phone, from Tony: “He’s sane enough.  Call Xavier. Tower’s got enough security measures.”  It spares him from asking uncomfortable questions, and while he’s used to them, it doesn’t mean he’s fond of the process.

The next morning, he returns to the Tower with Professor X and two of SHIELD’s telepaths, both of whom have been cleared by Melinda and the others, as well as by the professor himself.  Escorted by Natasha, they go off to examine Barnes while Phil joins Tony, Sam, and Steve in a conference room.

“Start from the beginning,” he says, “after the attack in DC.”

And Steve does, Sam or Tony stepping in now and again to offer other details.  With Tony and JARVIS tapping into security feeds literally around the world, _finding_ Barnes was apparently the easy part; catching him long enough to have a conversation that didn’t involve brandished weapons, however, was less so. But whatever had prompted a Russian assassin to fish his one-time best friend out of a river had apparently begun the process of breaking through his programming (Phil finds himself thinking, half-consciously, of Natasha’s self-described “cognitive recalibration”), and a month ago Sam and Steve had found him near an abandoned Kronos Oil facility in Geneva, half out of his mind and confused enough to be dragged to a safehouse.  Between Sam’s training as a VA psychologist and Steve’s ties to Barnes’ past—never mind his sheer stubbornness—they’d managed to help him transition from confusion to recall to horrified guilt; by the time Steve called Tony, Barnes was responding to “Bucky” again and had mostly stopped reverting to attempted homicide. The conglomeration of intermingled memories is still there, and he’s jumpy and edgy and flinches when he’s touched and looks like he perpetually expects an assassination attempt, but it’s still an improvement.

“I think now the problem is he remembers too much,” Steve finishes, a sadness in his eyes that Phil recognises too easily after months of seeing it in himself every time he heard Clint blame himself for Manhattan.  “Distinguishing between what’s real and what was programmed seems to be the hard part, but he seems more consistent now than he was when we found him.”

Turning to Sam, Phil raises an eyebrow. “And your professional opinion?”

With a half-shrug, Sam lifts a hand and tips it back and forth.  “It’s… it’s like PTSD, only exponentially amplified,” he explains.  “With the kind of programming he received, it’s hardly surprising, but I think it’s reversible; it’s just getting _him_ to believe it that seems to be an obstacle.”  He glances over at Steve, then continues, “I can get in his head, but I can’t get _in_ his head, so the guys you’ve got with him now should be able to flush out any subliminal triggers, maybe help distinguish between fact and fiction.  I also get the impression he and Natasha knew each other when she was still with Russia, and if she underwent anything remotely similar to his processing, whatever it is she did to get out may turn out to be helpful.”

“Can you give me a threat assessment?” It’s at least half a test, since Phil’s more than capable of performing one, and he knows full well Natasha will have one of her own for him the moment she’s done.

Again, Sam shrugs.  “I wouldn’t put him on assignment or anything, and I don’t think he’s a hundred percent steady right now, but he’s more like the person Steve’s described than he was when he first showed up in DC. So on a good day, low; on a bad day, medium.  He hasn’t hit high in a week or two, and frankly that’s faster than I would have expected.”

Nodding in thanks, Phil glances at Tony. “And you?”

For a moment, he actually looks surprised, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline, and Phil ignores the matching looks of surprise coming from Sam and Steve.  “I’m Science and Tech, not Ops.  That’s a question for Maria.  Or Melinda.”

“Neither of whom are here, so I’m asking you.”

Pursing his lips, Tony taps his fingers against the table, thinking.  “Back before aliens invaded New York,” he says slowly, as though he’s parsing the thoughts aloud word-by-word, “they said we were all on threat watch—me, Natasha, Steve, everyone.  We’ve all got skills or abilities or magical powers or whatever that make us a risk, and so does he.  But frankly, most of what I’ve seen in the past week says he’s less of a threat than I was when I was dying, if you translate threat to myself into threat to everyone else.”

“Is it safe to keep him here?” Phil asks, this time to the room at large.

“JARVIS has the ability right now to lock down his quarters, and with Natasha, you, and Clint in residence and all the rest of you in and out, from a security standpoint I think we’ve got most prison systems beat, plus the bonus not-a-prison part.  Steve’s got a floor up there, and there’s a couple vacant ones in the residence section if you decide to stick around,” Tony says, directing that last at Sam.  “The only thing we need to convince him of is to let me take a look at the arm, make sure it’s not rigged in some way.  I’m not going to go in and force him to do it unless it starts killing him, but really I’m more concerned about the tech than I am about him.”

“I thought you were running scans while we were in Geneva?” Steve says, and Tony nods.

“I was, but those were all external, based on what JARVIS could determine.  So I can tell you it’s got some neural interfacing and isn’t rigged with, say, C4, or any kind of bioweapon, nor is it attached to any sort of visual monitoring, but most of what I have is a structural read, and there’s only so much even I can get from that without looking at it physically.”

Phil shoots Steve a carefully assessing look, debating whether to ask the obvious question or not.  Then he says, “You’ve known him the longest. What do you think?”

Hesitating, the soldier finally shakes his head and sighs.  “I think I’m the wrong person to ask.  I’m basing this on the man I knew seventy years ago, and I don’t think I know enough about what’s been done to him to be objective.”

“Fair enough.  Sergeant?”

Sam blinks once at being addressed by his former rank, but otherwise doesn’t comment.  “With the amount of technical security here, it’s enough to give us advance warning even if it can’t preempt him.  I think you’ll want to keep him seeing a psychologist, if you can find one he’ll talk to, and have one of the telepaths check in fairly regularly at first, but I don’t think he’s going to, say, kill us all in our sleep.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Phil says drily. Blowing out a breath, he continues, “Which brings us to our next order of business.  Captain, I know you signed on with SHIELD independent of the Avengers, prior to all of the meltdown.  Are you willing to remain with us while we try to fix this?”

A beat; then Steve nods.  “Given that you’re running this, I assume you have no plans to surveil the entire world and assassinate our own citizens for breathing funny, so yes, I’m on board.”

“The NSA is envious of our surveillance capabilities,” Phil points out, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his mouth, “but no, we’re not planning on annihilating half the population.” Steve actually smiles back, for perhaps the first time since Tony’s plane landed, and Phil looks to Sam. “As for you, I’m aware you have commitments to the VA, but we need good people on our side, and right now there’s a fairly significant dearth of those.  I’m not going to give you the ‘your country needs you’ speech, given you’ve already done your share, but I’d like you to consider joining us, or signing on as a consultant, if you’re willing.”

Eyes widening, Sam opens his mouth and shuts it again just as fast.  “Ah, hell,” he says after a minute.  “Captain America called, I came.  I can’t argue with getting rid of a Nazi organisation any more than I could with that.”

“Pithy,” Tony remarks.

Sam grins.  “I try.”  To Phil, he adds, “I’ll need to talk to the VA, see about transferring—” Then he pauses, cuts himself off and shoots Phil a suspicious look.  “Unless, that is, someone’s already set that in motion.”

Phil laughs outright.  “We haven’t, no, but we can, which might make it easier on you.”

“It’s a lie—SHIELD makes nothing easier for anyone.”

“You work for us, Stark.”

“I know.  That’s my point.”

\----------

After their unexpected trip to the bottom of the ocean, Leo Fitz had been in a coma for three weeks.  Jemma Simmons spent most of that time pushing herself into work, checking monitors and vitals with a clinical professionalism Phil respects and understands all too well, and working with the team to try to put the pieces of the agency back together.  If she spent most of her nights in a chair in Leo’s room, no one mentioned it, but they did their best to make sure he was never alone. Without access to a doctor they could trust, Phil had called Bruce Banner, who came down for a few days to run some tests and make a prognosis.  Even without an MD after his name, he was still more competent than most.

And then Leo wakes up.  His speech is slow, slurred, mobility limited on his left side, but he had all of his intellect, his wit, his obdurate determination intact.  They’re collectively so pleased to have him back at all that it never once occurs to anyone to make the mistake of saying how sorry they are for what he “lost”.

\----------

“Hey, boss,” Jemma says, looking up from her desk as Phil taps on the doorframe before coming in.  They’re all bouncing back and forth between the Tower and the base, but ever since Tony had offered the use of his state-of-the-art medical wing for Leo, Jemma had made a near-permanent relocation. Considering she and Leo were originally intended to work with Tony, anyway, it’s a logical move.

“How are you doing?”

She wrinkles her nose just slightly, gestures at the holo-screens surrounding her and shakes her head.  “Overwhelmed.”  Phil has to bite back a grin, well aware of what that’s like.  “I’m working with _Tony Stark_ ,” she continues, throwing up her hands.  “We sat through entire lectures on him and his tech, and he treats me like an equal!”

Dropping into the chair in front of her desk, Phil offers her a smile.  “He’s more prone to backhanded compliments than actual ones, but _that_ may well be the highest one he can give.  You’re doing good work.”

With an answering smile, she sets down her stylus and leans back just a little.  “Put him and Fitz in the same room and I honestly don’t know whether to be amazed or just smack their heads together,” she says like it’s a secret, and Phil laughs softly.

“It’s not an unusual sentiment with Tony Stark,” he reassures her.

Leo, whose office is across the hall from hers, had been cleared by the doctors as fit to return to work on limited assignment just over a week ago, and he’s been in speech therapy and physical rehab from the moment his medical team had deemed him ready to get out of bed. While he’s using a cane on most days, a wheelchair on the particularly bad ones, and still speaks with a careful, slow deliberation that doesn’t quite compensate for the enunciation that continues to frequently elude him, he’s seemingly happy to be _doing_ something again. The frenetic energy that had driven his movements in the lab on the Bus is gone, and his doctors don’t know if he’ll ever have that back; but he still debates the science versus the technology with Jemma, argues over the curriculum with Tony, talks physics with Bruce.

Once he’d been released from medical and switched to an outpatient—as much as one can be an outpatient when one lives in the same building that houses the therapists and the hospital—he and Jemma found excuses to spend most of their off-time together.  Ostensibly, it’s a medical necessity (and in truth, his discharge papers had asked for someone to stay with him for at least a week), but everyone knows it’s only half the explanation.  But the former SHIELD hadn’t bothered with frat regs, and Phil sees no reason to change that now.  They work as well together as they ever did, perhaps because Jemma’s found the distinction between pity and support with remarkable ease, and watching them with Tony makes him think this new agency of theirs has an actual fighting chance.

\----------

A month after Phil first shows up at the Tower, Thor and Jane appear in Manhattan, with none other than Darcy Lewis in tow. They’ve heard enough to spare Phil from recounting the whole ugly story, and in the living room of the floor Thor and Jane have accepted in Stark Tower (which is slowly, unofficially becoming known as Avengers Tower, given that the rest of the letters in Stark’s name had never been replaced), Phil asks Thor if he would be willing to serve as SHIELD’s liaison to Asgard.

“It is good to see you well, Son of Coul,” Thor had said solemnly upon first seeing him, his hand heavy on Phil’s shoulder, and now he smiles broadly, tipping his head in a minute bow.  “It would be my honour,” he replies, and Phil breathes a sigh of relief.

At Tony’s request, he offers Jane a consultant position with Science & Tech; she blatantly refuses to work for SHIELD itself, but contracting to Tony Stark she accepts.  Bruce had been the same way: Tony had wanted him as Assistant Director to the division, all while knowing full well Bruce would never accept; that he’d also signed on as a consultant speaks volumes of his trust in Tony, which is why Phil hadn’t been the one to ask.

\----------

Six months after Phil receives the promotion from hell, he reopens SHIELD’s newly renovated New York City field office, though calling it a “field office” is like calling the Stark Mansion a “house”. Much as Tony had renovated Stark Tower following the Chitauri invasion, they’d essentially stripped the building and started over.  Finding sufficient real estate in Manhattan is hard enough without giving up already-acquired property, so they went with what they had.

Eight months after Phil receives the promotion from hell, he breaks ground on the new SHIELD headquarters in Alexandria, on property that backs right up to the Potomac.  No one is sure what they’re going to call it, if they’re going to keep “Triskelion” or find something new, but for now the contractors have work to do, and the rest of them have plenty of time to come up with a name.  They still haven’t succeeded in renaming the agency proper, though, so no one’s really holding their breaths, and if Phil spends his time digging through mythology to find something appropriate (“Syragh” has the right symbolism, but not quite the ring to it, and it’d be even harder to fit words to that acronym than it had been to get “SHIELD”), he doesn’t discuss it.

Ten months after Phil receives the promotion from hell, SHIELD’s academy reopens.  Unlike the Triskelion, which had been damaged enough that they’d sifted through the wreckage to check for classified tech before simply demolishing the site, nothing had actually _happened_ to most of the teaching facility (giant, science-induced storm in the surrounding area notwithstanding). Regardless, Phil and everyone else on the administrative team had agreed a redesign would be good for morale. So Tony and Phil had sat down with Maria and Steve (who, at some point, had become the unofficial Executive AD of National Security, and Phil is hoping for and cajoling him into the official title) to figure out a way to retain the sense of SHIELD as it should have been.  They all know they’re never going to wipe clean the stain of Hydra, regardless of whether they manage to rename the agency or not, but Phil’s fierce belief in who they are, paired with Steve’s solid, unshakeable faith in his country, mean they try their damnedest.  Their logo changes from the angular black-and-grey eagle to the outline of a griffon, royal blue against dark grey, with a line of stars at its centre, a design Steve had handed Phil one day a few months after he’d returned.

“Just a thought,” he’d said, as someone had made an offhand comment about griffons over dinner one night; Phil had kept it, and the look of pleased surprise on Steve’s face when Phil asks if he can use it for the agency is worth it.  A month later, the first set of badges arrives, and this time Phil’s incorporated Fury’s coordinate-sending LED communication bit into the badges of every high-level official he has.

As for the renovations themselves, Tony himself finances most of it: curving slate-veined white marble walls; heavy, bullet-resistant glass; brushed chrome accents; black tile or maple wood floors, depending on the rooms.  It’s surprisingly subtle, for all that it costs a fortune, and Phil is grateful beyond words, which works out since Tony won’t give him the chance to offer anything resembling thanks.

\----------

The same month the Academy reopens, Phil walks into the office Tony has—and somewhat surprisingly occupies on a relatively regular basis—at SHIELD Manhattan and says, “I need two things from you.”

“Only two?” Tony responds without looking away from the holo-screens on which he’s designing god only knows what. “It must be a light day.”

“Shut up, Tony,” Phil grumbles in response as he appropriates one of the chairs by the desk, and this time Tony looks up, grinning.

“Come on, Phil, you know better than that.” Phil’s not entirely sure when they went from “Stark” and “Coulson” to “Tony” and “Phil”, but he’s strangely surprised to find he doesn’t mind.  “What’s on your mind?”

Sighing, Phil opens his mouth, then changes his mind, and Tony frowns at him as he flicks the screens away.  “Phil?”

Phil blows out a breath, wonders when on earth this became his life.  “You and Steve are friends, right?”

“Somewhat unexpectedly, yes.”

“I need you to help me convince him to take the job.”

“…I thought he already did.”

“Not as your equivalent in National Security,” he replies, and understanding dawns on Tony’s face.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Sam’s just as unofficially sort of running Counterintelligence, right?”

“Essentially.”

Tony nods, taps his forefinger against his lips. “I’ll think about that—he’s got enough patriotism going on and enough disillusionment with what Pierce tried to do that there’ll be something.”   A year ago, Phil would have been decidedly wary, tried to pry the details out of him; today, though, he’s learnt to trust the other man’s judgement, at least for the most part.  “Now what’s the other thing?”

“The one you’re going to hate,” Phil replies, and Tony’s answering look is distinctly unimpressed.  “I need you to name that Assistant.”

“Phil…”

“I know,” he interrupts, spreading his hands in a “trust me, I get it” gesture.  “But between SHIELD and SI even you can’t do this forever without killing yourself. I know you wanted Banner, but there’s got to be someone else who can do the job and keep up with you.”

It’s Tony’s turn to sigh, reaching up to run a hand through his hair.  “I considered Foster,” he admits, “but—and I get the utter hypocrisy of this statement—I don’t think she has the patience for this.”  Phil chokes back a laugh, and Tony offers him a rueful grin.  “I know, I know, don’t you dare comment.”  Leaning back in his chair, he gives Phil a thoughtful look, the tiniest of creases between his eyebrows.  “I’ve been wanting to call Betty Ross in for a while, originally for Bruce, but then it occurred to me that she might be good at this.”  Phil nods; Ross’ reputation is solid, and she’s made a point of distancing herself from her father.  It’s also entirely within the realm of possibility that she might well accept just to spite the General.  “But you’ve had me working with Leo and Jemma almost from day one, and while they might be young, they’re also part of the old SHIELD, the part you’re trying to preserve.  I’d like to submit them, for Deputy ADs if you can’t swing Assistant.” He pulls a face, wrinkling his nose. “We’re risking turning our command structure into the FBI, but all the same.”

Phil responds with a long look, blue eyes pensive; slowly, he nods.  “I think you might be right.  They’ve…”

“If you say ‘grown a lot’, I am going to fall out of this chair laughing.”

Muttering something decidedly uncomplimentary under his breath, Phil throws a balled-up post-it at him.  “What do you think about Skye?”

To anyone else, it would be a non-sequitur. Because it’s Tony Stark, he doesn’t even blink.  “She’s got the brains for the job; she figured out half of JARVIS’ code just by intuition, and that’s half more than anyone else.  She held her original badge for… how long?”

“Not long enough,” Phil admits, and Tony shrugs.

“Given where we are, that might not be a bad thing,” he points out, and then his expression turns speculative, eyes staring distantly at nothing in particular as he thinks.  “Jim Morita’s grandson is a hell of a tech-head—he’s out in the Silicon Valley working for either Apple or Google, I can never remember which, but he’s done some significant consulting with Lockheed in Bethesda.  He’s got the seniority to make sense as Exec if you think Skye’s inexperience might be a problem, and I think they’d get on well together.”

“You couldn’t just let me hire Pepper?” Phil asks at last.

Tony shoots him an impish grin. “ _Someone_ has to run SI.”

\----------

That afternoon, Phil draws up the contracts for Jemma and Leo, and saves a copy for if (when) Tony calls to say Betty Ross is coming in.  He brings the papers by himself, instead of sending an assistant he knows they’ll try to send back, and for all their protest, he refuses to take no for an answer.

“Stark asked for you, and I agree. You’re already doing the work, you might as well get paid for it.”

The two scientists exchange a look rife with more meaning than Phil cares to interpret, and then Jemma says, “Yes, sir,” and reaches for two pens, handing one to Leo.

When he calls Tony from his office to say they’ve accepted, all the engineer says is, “I figured.  Thanks,” and if Phil had ever had any doubts about the people he’d chosen to lead the new SHIELD, he doesn’t any longer.


	2. Epilogue: Build All My Wildest Dreams

Twenty months after Phil receives the promotion from hell, SHIELD HQ has been open for two months, and they’re carefully, slowly recruiting, beginning to feel like an agency again instead of a band of revolutionaries.  The Helicarrier has been up and running for four months, and both Maria and Phil divide their time amongst Alexandria, Manhattan, and their floating fortress.

Every once in a while, when he’s at the Academy, Phil will slip into the back of a lecture hall and watch for a few minutes as Jemma and Leo teach.  The last time, a week ago, it had been a class on biotechnology—given recent developments, they’d added an entire course on it to the curriculum—and they’d been covering the Deathlok project, talking about the intersection between human and machine.  Leo’s speaking easier these days, though still slower than he once did, and the cane is become such an extension of him that most of them barely notice it anymore.  He’s done with fieldwork, by decree of his doctors, but that hasn’t stopped him from designing tech that helps keep the rest of them alive, and he faces the students’ hero-worship for the former Science & Tech prodigies who are now the youngest Deputy Assistant Directors in SHIELD’s history with a remarkable degree of equanimity.

More because it’s a habit of their complementary specialties, they tend to teach together, startlingly seamless and approachable in a way most of the previous instructors had not been.  They’re strict about protocol by necessity, but their youth gives them an understanding of the cadets, who in turn seem to feel they can relate to their teachers.

And, if Phil’s also fairly certain he saw Leo out looking at engagement rings the other day, that’s none of his business.

\----------

“Press, don’t pull,” Clint tells a new recruit (very new—the girl’s been there about a week) at the firing range.

He, Melinda, and Natasha have been splitting the physical training, swapping firearms and hand-to-hand to give the cadets some variation.  Maria and Steve pop in on occasion, and Phil had done so exactly once before coming to the somewhat entertaining conclusion that he terrified the trainees by reputation alone about as much as Fury had.

Stepping behind the cadet, who can’t be more than nineteen and whose name Phil’s fairly certain is D’Aubigne or something equally French, Clint says, “Hold that,” after she’s fired once.  “Reset the trigger, don’t release it; feel for the click.”  Hands on her shoulders, he pushes gently.  “Bend your knees a little more, and lean forward just a hair.”  She makes the adjustments, and Clint steps away again.  “Now sight in and fire again, twice.”

She does, and though she doesn’t hit the precise centre of the target, she hits centre mass with both shots.  “Again,” Clint says, and she complies, repeating the process until her magasine's empty.  “Good.”  He nods at the gun.  “Make it safe.”

With the slowness of someone whose hands haven’t quite built up the muscle, she turns her body until her back is to him, bringing the gun against her chest for leverage as she pulls the slide back, locks it open, clears the chamber, and releases the mag.  She sets it down in the booth with the muzzle downrange, and Clint nods, tells her to holster it, and gestures for the next recruit to step forward.  They’re all new enough for him to be walking them through individually, instead of having them shoot in groups, and from the viewing booth half a floor up, Phil doesn’t bother trying to hide a smile.  Thanks to Tony, the glass is tinted until it’s nearly one-way, and he has a full view of the range proper.

For all his bitching, Clint’s demonstrated a remarkable amount of patience.  Unlike his first (and only) assignment as a Field Training Officer, from which he’d summarily resigned after two weeks with the threat of resigning from the entire agency if they didn’t find a replacement, he makes the cadets comfortable.  It’s no secret he’s an Avenger, given that almost everyone in the known world had seen the footage of the Chitauri invasion, and his reputation alone probably helps keep them in line.  But he teases them just enough to circumvent the speechless awe and let them focus on the work; and if the price for that tolerance is Phil having to listen to him complain—mostly just for show—when they’re home, Phil’s more than happy to pay.

\----------

Shaking her head, Natasha gestures Melinda forward, pulling a dummy gun from its place shoved into her belt and pressing it to the small of the other agent’s back.  “If you are already here, you are at a disadvantage,” she says, in a tone of over-exaggerated calm that suggests she’s said this more than once.  The two of them had split the class in half, working with shock knives and guns to practise disarms, but they’ve also been using each other as practise dummies.  “You need speed and force to regain that advantage.”

As though that’s a pre-rehearsed cue—which, knowing them, it probably is—Melinda spins in toward Natasha, left arm sweeping the gun away and pinning Natasha’s wrist against her shoulder as she drives a punch past the redhead’s face in lieu of actually hitting her.  Hand pushing against Natasha’s neck, she throws her knee into the other agent’s solar plexus, and, as Natasha mimes going down, reaches over to clamp her hand against the slide and break her grip.

“There is no criminal stupid enough to hold a gun on you with his finger off the trigger,” she says as they both straighten and Melinda hands the gun back to her.  “Break their grip that way and you will strip their finger down to the bone, at which point they will likely not be thinking about shooting you anymore.”

They go through the process again, more slowly this time, demonstrating two different disarms, and then Natasha gestures the pair she had interrupted back to the mats.  “Again.”

Two tries later, the young man wins against his “attacker”, driving his palm toward her chin and tipping the gun back muzzle-first with his other hand until her hold breaks and he can turn it back on her.  The look of startled amazement on his face reminds Phil of his own academy days, and he thinks that maybe they’re going to be okay.

\----------

From New York, Skye and Dan Morita are holed up with Tony in one of the labs at SHIELD Manhattan, working on internal security.  Given the events of the past almost two years, it’s something they’ve ceased taking for granted in any measure.  The biometrics they’d designed and implemented into every SHIELD facility are almost impossible to crack, and if the headache Phil can feel building is any indication, they seem to be trying to take the “almost” out of the equation.

“If we can get readings like EEGs and maybe fMRIs on record for every employee, we should be able to have the biometrics implement neural interfacing, figure out whether or not someone’s really _them_ ,” Tony explains, distractedly, and Phil isn’t certain what he’s saying is scientifically _possible_.

He does, however, know better than to try to argue with him when he’s haring off on a theory, so he just presses his fingers into his temples and answers, “Well, I’ve stopped being able to determine whether or not what you’re saying is sci-fi or reality, so you’re probably on the right track.”

“Mmm, I’ll have to call you back,” Tony says, and Phil doesn’t bother with a response he knows will go unheard before hanging up.

“Sometimes I wonder what possessed me to hire him,” he says to no one in particular, but since Clint’s the only other person present, he’s the one who answers.

“Sadly, common sense,” his husband says drily, leaning over his shoulder to kiss him.  “You _are_ the one who called him in the middle of one his mad genius moments.”

“Your support is so appreciated.”

Clint shoots him a cheeky grin.  “You know you love me.”

Shaking his head, not quite succeeding in hiding a smile, Phil sighs.  “Yes, yes, I do.”

\----------

Having summarily appropriated a conference room on the Helicarrier, Steve, Sam, and Bucky are poring over a digital map on the table and gesturing at the sat feed projected on the screen against the wall, Grant Ward standing with them.  He’s been a “free” man for all of a month, on probation and heavily guarded and monitored at all times; he’s not back in the field, nor will he be for a long time to come, but he seems to be slowly finding his feet again without Garrett as a buffer between him and the rest of the world.  Time with Natasha appears to have helped, augmented by the presence of Bucky, and eventually Clint, as he learns to redefine “normal” and delineate the greys between “right” versus “wrong”.

The telepaths had cleared him months ago, and though he’s still careful, almost tentative in a way he never had been before, Phil thinks that perhaps there’s a chance.  Melinda and Skye and the rest of their original team are justifiably wary of him, something to which he responds with a quiet resignation, well aware that he needs to earn back their trust and just as aware that it may never happen.

But here, in this room, there’s a tiny flash of the specialist Phil had recruited what feels like a lifetime ago, confident in his own skill as he contributes to the discussion about the terrain of what Phil’s fairly certain is the Congo.  This, more than anything, is what keeps Phil at the door, rather than stepping into the room as he’d been planning.  As promised, Tony had gotten Steve on board, along with Sam, and though Phil has no idea how he accomplished it, he doesn’t ask.  With Darcy serving as the Avengers’ liaison to SHIELD, it eases the coordination with most of the team now inextricably linked to both team and agency, which at least means Steve worries less, as does Tony (for all that he’d never admit to worrying in the first place).

They’re trying to convince Sam to join the Avengers, which doesn’t look as though it’ll take a whole lot convincing, and Bucky had joined SHIELD as a consultant six months ago, rebuilding himself from the ground up in a manner not dissimilar to Ward.  They’re trying to convince _him_ to join the Avengers, as well, though that might take a little more effort; they’ve all watched him painstakingly searching out and deciphering his memories, learning to be Bucky Barnes, to be Steve Rogers’ best friend, and as fellow escapees from the same hell, he’s learnt from Natasha how to be a person and not just a weapon.  The files on the Black Widow had said she was involved with the Winter Solider early on in her time with Red Room; Phil likes to believe that the involvement of Natasha Romanov with Bucky Barnes is something smoother, built more on truth than assignments and false memories.

“You are fucking certifiable,” Bucky grumbles to no one in particular; Steve punches him in the shoulder, Grant sort-of half-glares at him with no real rancour, and Sam retorts, “Takes one to know one.”

A year ago that would have been a disastrous response; now, though, Bucky just raises an eyebrow and says, “Which says what, exactly, about you?” and Grant chokes on a laugh he tries to hide.

\----------

Twenty months after Phil receives the promotion from hell, SHIELD is standing on its own feet again, Phil fiercely proud of what his people have been able to build, to change, despite the odds and the scepticism of the intelligence community and what had felt like the irreparable shattering of a giant.

“I was just coming to get you—the Sit Room’s waiting,” Maria says as he approaches SatCon, and he actually smiles.  She raises an eyebrow, but he says nothing.

Onscreen, the Joint Chiefs are seated around a table, debating back and forth with one another on the current situation in Lebanon while the Army Chief of Staff drums his fingers impatiently against the table.  “Gentlemen,” Phil says by way of greeting, still smiling, and the Marine Corps COS turns to face the screen long enough to hold up a hand in the universal “give us a minute” signal; then he seems to process Phil’s expression, double-takes, and their end of the feed descends into awkward silence.

On Phil’s part, he considers that, too, a victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Titles: chapter 1 is James Blunt's "Bonfire Heart", off the album _Moon Landing_. The overall fic and the epilogue are from Vienna Teng's "Landsailor", off the album _Aims_.
> 
> Regarding canon, this fic attempts to lean more toward MCU than the comics, though the _Winter Soldier_ arc here is sort of a mix between the two (if you've read the comic arc, you already know where Captain America 3 is probably going). Natasha and Bucky's history is, for the record, straight out of the comics, since the films thus far haven't touched on her Red Room training and her extended youth. If you're familiar with comics canon, you'll recognise allusions and modifications to some of their broader plots (e.g. Tony's EAD appointment to SHIELD), but no knowledge of them is necessary. I have also deliberately ignored one piece of the ending in _Iron Man 3_ , due to medical improbability and lack of a sufficient MCU-canon explanation, but that is the only blatant deviation. If you've seen it, you know what I'm referring to; if you haven't, you won't be spoiled for anything; if you're just confused, feel free to ask.
> 
> And, since Sam's USAF rank was never mentioned in CATWS, I made my best educated guess based on the MCU version of his character.


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